The number of girl gamers is up, but will women spend hours sitting in their mom's basement eating chips and tapping away on their pink bedazzled Nintendo DSs? 38% percent of video game players in the U.S. are female, up from 33% five years ago, according to IBISWorld, but the new problem for software companies is that women are more casual gamers than men. "The challenge is not to get them to play, but to get them to spend more of their time and money on games," says Anita Frazier, an industry analyst. But rather than creating complex, engrossing games aimed at women or recruiting more female game designers, software companies are just churning out more games about fashion, cooking, babies and makeup, according to Didi Carduso, managing editor of Grrlgamers.com, a video game review site produced by women. "I think a girl's world is a little bigger than that," she said. [Reuters]